This invention relates to the java enabling of groupware applications and, in particular, to enabling groupware to perform telephony functions in a call centre telephony environment.
Call centres are now an important part of the business function of most large companies. In many cases customers are, in the first instance, forwarded to a call centre before being forwarded to the relevant company representative or agent. This enables the call to be forwarded more efficiently. Information can be collected from the customer without using an agent, for instance using an interactive voice response system, thereby saving agent time and increasing efficiency.
The purpose of a call centre is to enable a customer call to be dealt with by one of a number of representatives or agents having access to the relevant business application. A customer could be calling for any one of a number of reasons, for instance, requiring further information, making a simple or detailed enquiry, placing an order, following up an order, needing basic technical assistance or making a payment. Each one of these reasons for calling may have a business application associated with it and any representative having access to the business application should be able to deal with the call. A company may have a dedicated department to deal with one of these functions or have a department which deals with more than one function.
Business applications are generally stand alone and are not integrated with telephony functions. This requires the agent to enter information about a call or caller directly into the application while the caller is talking to the agent and means that the agent will use the separate telephone system to handle the call. This can lead to inefficiencies when handling the call, for instance having to manually dial the customer number and enter in the customer details.
In order to overcome some of these inefficiencies, business applications are increasingly being integrated with telephony functions so that the agent may select on his workstation a customer to dial and the workstation will instruct the relevant hardware to make the call.
For instance, it is known to include in a business application 100 on a workstation client 102 a function (such as make a telephone call) which will make an application interface (API) call to a telephony server 104 (see FIG. 1A) in order to initiate a telephone call. The telephony server 104 is connected to a telephony system and comprises telephony functionality 106 for making a call. The client server architecture is enabled using a common telephony interface 108A, 108B.
One of the problems with this known approach is that for a telephony function to be included in such a business application the application developer needs to be competent with programming both the business application and the telephony functionality.
Business applications are increasingly being written in a groupware environment which allows a company to give its business applications a common interface to its employees. Groupware business applications have a similar look and feel and therefore can be much easier to learn and use than stand alone business applications. Typically a non-programming employee can set up a document database using template forms stored in the groupware environment and allow access to the database through the groupware environment to other employees.
The internet can be considered a groupware environment where web pages are the interfaces to business applications. A telephony directory business application can be telephony enabled on the internet using a web page 110 (see FIG. 1B). On selecting a person to call from a list on the directory web page and submitting the web page to the internet server 112, a telephony connection can be set up between the caller and the selected person. Initially a client computer 114 connected to the internet uses a browser to access the telephone directory web page 110 stored on the internet server 112. The caller""s telephone and password are entered in appropriate fields in the page and the person to be called is selected from a list in another field. The web page is submitted to the internet server 112 by selecting the appropriate button. The internet server 112 acquires the information from the web page 110 and then makes a telephony API call to a telephony server 116 connected to the internet server 112 to make the call. The telephony server 116 s connected to a private branch exchange and may set up telephone calls between telephones connected to the PBX. The telephony server receives the call through a common telephony interface and using the appropriate telephony functionality makes a telephone connection between the parties.
This solution suffers from a similar problem as the previous telephony enabled business application. In order to write such an application it is necessary to use low level code for the business application and for the telephone functionality and have an application developer familiar with both.
It would be desirable to incorporate telephony functionality in an existing groupware business applications without having to program the telephony functions in a low level.
According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a system for operating a call centre comprising: telephony means for performing a plurality of telephony functions with respect to the call centre; a groupware environment and business application for execution within said groupware environment, said groupware having applet means for enabling the execution of applets within the application but independent of the groupware environment; the application comprising a telephony applet for controlling the telephony means; and the business application comprising: a document template into which the applet is embedded; and means for creating a new document from a document template; wherein the new document comprises the same applet that is embedded in the document template.
By embedding telephony applets in existing groupware applications, telephony functionality can be extended to call centres with relatively small effort. Groupware is particularly useful for designing business applications and databases at a high level (not language specific) and the addition of telephony applets into the design process great improve the efficiency of using groupware in a call centre environment. The telephony means corresponds to a telephony-server including a common interface with the groupware. The applet means corresponds to the Java Virtual Machine including the interfaces necessary for executing the applet.
A telephony applet preferably comprises a self contained telephony object or line resource object for invoking any one of the telephone functions of the telephony server on a telephone line connected to the call centre. The line resource object comes in the form of a Java Bean so that it may be assembled into an applet by a visual builder such as Visual Age for Java.
The groupware may comprise a presentation layer which the user will see. It may also comprise functionality for designing a business application within this presentation layer, in Lotus Notes for example, xe2x80x98formsxe2x80x99 are part of the presentation layer which the user will see and can tailor to suit. The groupware may import a telephony applet into the presentation layer and embed it within the Notes form. The importation can occur after the business application has been designed.
In Lotus Notes the xe2x80x98business applicationxe2x80x99 comprises a document template (Notes form) into which the applet is embedded and functionality for creating an instance of a new document from a document template. Each new document therefore comprises the same applet that is embedded in the document template.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of operating a call centre comprising: executing a business-application within a groupware environment on a call centre workstation; opening an applet embedded within the business application; performing, independently of said groupware environment, a telephony function provided by the applet with respect to a telephony line connected to the call centre.